“Since 1870 I have been more or less of an oil producer. In 1866, I came to the Ohio oil fields and began the business of producing oil at Lima. Since that time I have followed it both in Ohio and Indiana, and to some extent in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In 1893 I invented some improvements in appliances for producing oil, and, finding manufacturers unwilling to make the articles, fearing there would be no profit, I concluded to undertake their manufacture. This brought me in contact with labor conditions in a city for the first time in my life. As a rule, labor in the oil fields had enjoyed large wages compared with similar classes outside. I found men working in Toledo for a fraction of a dollar a day. I began to wonder how it was possible for men to live on such a small sum of money in a way becoming to citizens of a free republic. I studied social conditions, and these led me to feel very keenly the degradation of my fellow-men, and I at once declared that the ‘going wages’ rule should not govern in the Acme Sucker-Rod Company, which is the firm name of our business. I said that the rule that every man is entitled to such a share of the product of his toil as will enable him to live decently, and in such a way that he and his children may be fitted to be citizens of the free republic, should be the rule governing the wages of our establishment. “To break down the feeling of social inequality, we began to ‘get together,’—that is, we had little excursions down the bay. We invited our workmen and their families, and also some other people who live in big houses and do not work with their hands. We sought to mix them, to let them understand that we were all people—just people, you know. GOOD WILL AND FELLOWSHIP IN BUSINESS. “As our business increased, we took in new men. We made no special effort to select. We asked no questions as to their habits, their morals, their religion or their irreligion. We were ignoring the sacred rule of business, getting along in a sort of free and easy way, occasionally giving the boys a word of caution, printed on the envelopes; then, perhaps, a little letter expressing good will and fellowship. Then we came to feel the need of a rule to govern the place. We thought, to that extent, we ought to be like other people. So we had the following printed on a piece of tin and nailed to the wall. It’s there to-day: “‘The Rule Governing This Factory: Therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.’ “In 1895, at Christmas time, we made a little cash dividend, accompanying it with such a letter as we believed would be helpful. In 1896, we repeated the dividend and the letter. In 1897 and 1898 we did the same.” In response to the query as to how he would regulate property interests, Mayor Jones said: